No Printing Errors Issue 70

[TonyMac]

ISSUE 70 OUT NOW!

 

JOHN LOUIS: My Life in Speedway - new book extracts

IF you are thinking about buying the new John Louis autobiography, My Life in Speedway, to be published by Retro Speedway in November, then you might want to take a peek at the edited extracts presented here over six pages.

 

JL talks about his transition from scrambling to speedway and his early years with the Ipswich Witches.

 

He reflects on the bitter disappointment of being dropped by England manager Len Silver just moments before a showpiece Wembley occasion.

 

His greatest individual achievement was winning the 1975 British Championship – and here John reveals the preparations and training it took for him to conquer all at Coventry 40 years ago.

 

He talks, too, about his moves to Halifax and his relationship with Kenny Carter, and then his twilight seasons captaining the 'old enemy' at King's Lynn.

 

After he quit as a rider in 1984, JL briefly went into a sales role and also rejoined Ipswich as team manager. He recalls how he struggled to produce a Foxhall track to the standard he'd been used to as the Witches' top rider.

 

DAVE MORTON: Tapes, Breaks and Heartaches - new book extracts

Our second bunch of extracts comes from Dave Morton's autobiography, Tapes, Breaks and Heartaches, to be published by Retro Speedway at the end of November.

 

Here Dave remembers his schoolboy visits to his local track Belle Vue, where his big mate Peter Collins caused a commotion in the stadium bar.

 

Mort recalls his early racing days with Crewe, where he wrote himself into the Guinness Book of Records, and the influence of Kings' double-winning skipper Dai Evans.

 

He looks back on a sensational performance for Hackney when, as a virtual unknown outside the top flight, he twice beat Ole Olsen to notch his first senior league maximum.

 

The 1975 New Zealand Champion explains his move from Hackney to Wolverhampton, then his delight at finally finding a track much nearer his Manchester home when he joined Sheffield.

 

But Tapes, Breaks and Heartaches is not just the story of a former Shell fitter who became a speedway star. In these excepts, Dave touches on the break-up of his marriage to the woman who left him for Speedway Star photographer Mike Patrick . . . and then the heartbreak of losing their three-year-old son, Jamie.

 

PLACES & FACES with Martin Rogers

Our columnist has been in search of capital gains as his tour takes him to Wembley, West Ham, Wimbledon, Hackney and White City.

 

HAVE BIKES, WILL TRAVEL

While speedway bike technology has evolved through the years, the mode of road transport used by its participants has also changed. With reflections from former riders, Rob Peasley looks at how riders of yesteryear took to the road.

 

He also interviews former Danish World Team Cup winner Preben Eriksen about THAT van and the trouble it caused.

 

"The lady living across the road gave me a strange look and her husband wasn’t allowed to look out of the front door anymore," says the ex-Wolves star.

 

ABBEY STADIUM MEMORIES

The bikes have roared for the last time at Swindon's Abbey Stadium and the hope is that they will be back in a newly-built home on the same site next season. In the meantime, Tony McDonald does some Robins reminiscing, we've an interview with Swindon's greatest-ever rider Barry Briggs and Andrew Skeels talks to current promoter Terry Russell about future plans.

 

MIDDLESBROUGH: 50 MEMORABLE MOMENTS

Middlesbrough were crowned National League champions and NL Fours winners in the Backtrack era but as Rob Peasley recalls, the club that has also taken the name of Teesside and now Redcar has been around, on and off, from 1929 until the present day.

 

OPENING TIMES - Paisley, 1975

Andrew Skeels talks to livewire former Paisley boss Neil Macfarlane and ex-Lions riders Mike Fullerton and Chris Roynon about the Scottish track's promising start in 1975, when Birmingham provided the first night opposition at Love Street, as well as problems that caused racing to cease at the Scottish venue after only two years .

 

We’re No Awa' Tae Bide Awa’

As the start of the 70s dawned, Coatbridge riders went their separate ways following the closure of the Old Meadowbank. But as Doug Nicolson recalls, Scotland hadn't seen the last of their former favourites.

 

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO . . .TONY MATTINGLEY?

Martin Neal tracked down the former Exeter and Milton Keynes starlet, the son of former Glasgow star Maury Mattingley, who is now a national service manager in the machine tools industry and a professional photographer, too.

 

ON TWO MINUTES WITH . . . STEVE WICKS
We catch up with former Felton training track product and ex-Newcastle and Berwick rider who won the 1987 Stars of Tomorrow meeting at Shielfield Park.

 

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